another owl!

Today I saw a barred owl! I was walking in the woods, not even looking for owls at the time, when I heard a loud-ish sound. I looked upward and saw a great shape fly into a sort-of-nearby tree. It was big and brown. At first I thought it was a great horned owl, but when I looked through the binocs it was clearly a barred. It was browner than other barreds I've seen, though. It sat for quite a while, and while I could not get into a good position to photograph it before it flew away, I was able to watch with the binocs, which was fabulous. After it flew off, I heard a bunch of blue jays squawking away in the area the owl had flown toward. I'm sure the jays were mobbing the poor owl. When I walked home that way a little later on, all was quiet, so either the owl had flown off, or the jays had gotten bored and left.

For today's photo, I have some forget-me-nots. These are one of my favorite flowers. Some years I have lots, and some years not so many. I have a few now, and it looks like more are on the way. Last summer, when we spread my father's ashes in the stream at Arcady (so they could, theoretically, make their way down to his beloved ocean), some of the ashes landed in a clump of forget-me-nots. How perfect, I thought, as tears came to my eyes.